The Impact of Early Protein Advancement in Critically Ill Patients with COVID-19: A Multicenter Cardinality Matching Study.

Background: Limited evidence is available regarding the safety and effectiveness of early high protein intake in critically ill patients with COVID-19. Therefore, this study aims to assess the safety of early protein advancement during nutritional support in these patients.

Methods: A multi-center retrospective cohort study included adult critically ill patients with COVID-19 admitted to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) at three centers in Saudi Arabia. Patients were grouped into two groups based on the protein intake at day three of feeding initiation into low protein (≤0.8 mg/kg/day) versus high protein (>0.8 mg/kg/day) groups. Acute kidney injury (AKI) during the ICU stay was the primary endpoint, while the remaining were considered secondary endpoints.

Results: The study included 466 patients, but after cardinality matching with a 2:1 ratio, 192 were in the lower protein group compared with 96 patients in the high protein group. The rate of AKI was low in the highprotein group compared with the low protein group on day three of feeding initiation (19.9% versus 12.7%); however, this was not statistically significant (OR 0.54; 95% CI 0.26, 1.33; p=0.2). Additionally, patients in the high protein group had a higher rate of atrial fibrillation than those in the low protein group (OR 2.33; 95% CI 1.18, 4.62; p=0.02). No differences were observed in 30-day and in-hospital mortality (HR1.33, 95% CI 0.91, 1.96; p=0.14 and HR 1.21, 95% CI: 0.85, 1.72; p=0.29, respectively).

Conclusion: The advancement of protein in critically ill patients with COVID-19 was not associated with significant differences in the incidence of AKI. In contrast, the early advancement of protein in nutritional feeding within the first three days was associated with a higher incidence of atrial fibrillation.